He shook his head. If Mehen was the cause of his daughter’s fall, then it was because he’d pressed her too hard, driven her when he should have been wary and listened. And planes above, he’d known better—how different was it from Clan Verthisathurgiesh insisting their favored son wed or be cast out? He kept shaking his head. It was his fault. All his fault.
“Fight it off,” Farideh said, this time in Draconic, and again when he opened his eyes, she skipped from something horrible and lost to his daughter, tired and concerned, and back again.
Lorcan laid a hideous hand on her shoulder. “Give it up,” he said, and his voice hissed and snapped. “You can’t break the domination and if you try much longer he’s going to lash out.”
Farideh narrowed those wicked eyes, but didn’t look back at the devil. “Lorcan, you’ve already made your point clear. We’re not leaving him.”
Mehen’s mouth twitched. There’s a girl.
“He’s not safe,” the devil hissed. “That’s all I’m saying. He’s not safe and he might never be safe again.”
“If you’re afraid,” Farideh said, “you can go wait by the gate. Otherwise, kindly keep quiet.” She skipped back to the clear, normal version. Perhaps … perhaps he ought to worry less about whether she could protect herself.
Another burst of cold light shivered over him, and this time he made out the words of Brin’s prayer. The magic shivered over his scales and he felt the spell Rohini had laid on him break apart like a stretched net popping knots.
His mind cleared, the world stayed focused. Mehen drew a long, unsteady breath and focused on Farideh.
“I was trying to kill you,” he said, horrified.
“It’s all right,” she said, relief in her voice. “I’m fine.”
“No,” he said, his heart cracking. He’d chased her down, his blade bare. He’d threatened her, he’d used the lightning breath. “Oh, Fari, tell me I didn’t hurt you.”
“I’m fine,” she said. “I’m fine. Are you well? Do you feel … odd?”
For the first time in days, he felt completely himself. “Karshoji Tiamat. Fari. I was so worried … like a horrible nightmare you can’t stir from. And she took hold of those nightmares—” His voice caught. She’d turned him against Farideh, so completely. He would never forgive himself for that. “And worse that I’d snapped at you … when your sister …” He looked around. “Where’s Havi?”
Farideh’s face fell. “Havi …” she started.
Mehen stiffened. “What happened?”
She paused and wet her lips. “Havi’s been captured. It was an accident, I wasn’t—”
“Thrik,” Mehen said gently. Planes, she was so ready for him to blame her. No wonder Rohini had you so easily, he thought. You push her too hard. “You’d never have let it happen if there were any way to stop it.” She unknotted the harness and he listened to Farideh explain what had happened, and what she was afraid was coming. “Do you have a plan?” he asked, coming to his feet.
“It’s … sort of,” she said. “I don’t know if it will work. You’ll go after Havilar,” she said. “The Ashmadai will converge on the House of Knowledge soon, but you need to catch Yvon as far from there as you can. You can’t get near Rohini again.”
“Let me near her and I’ll rip the kothar karshoji’s head off.”
“No,” Farideh said. “She’ll dominate you again, and then we’ll just be in worse shape. Get Havilar and head for the gates.”
“And you?” Mehen said. “Where will you be?”
“Making room for you to get Havilar,” she said. “I’ll find a way to distract Yvon’s fellows so they don’t come after you.” She looked up at Lorcan. “If all of this is just another distraction to keep eyes off Glasya, perhaps everyone would be more interested in what the Sixth Layer might be doing.”
Lorcan looked as if he might have protested, but something changed in the air and both of them, devil and warlock, seemed to have the wind momentarily knocked from them. Mehen reached to steady Farideh.
“What was that?” Farideh said.
Lorcan’s mouth made a line so hard it might have been chiseled there. “That,” he said, “was an extremely large portal opening. Considering our circumstances, I suggest—again—we get out of here, because if we are fortunate that is my mother and her army, and if we are not, the Ashmadai have called down their god.”
Farideh turned a cold eye on Lorcan. “Make up your mind, right now. You’re helping or you’re not: which is it?”
“That depends entirely on your plans—”
“Which I am not stupid enough to tell you if there’s still a good chance you’ll hare back to your mother’s side. Choose.”
He fidgeted. “You cannot fight them all.”
“Choose, Lorcan.”
“Promise me first you won’t try.”
“I swear I won’t try to fight all of them. I want Havilar back safe and the hospital not burned down. If we can manage else, we will.”
Lorcan hesitated. “Fine. I promise I’ll help you get Havilar back safe. And the hospital if it’s convenient.” He scowled. “And I wouldn’t go back to my mother—giving her your silly plans isn’t going to make her want to kill me any less. I’d like to hear your plan for that.”
“We cannot fight them all,” she agreed, “so we deal with them each separately. The Ashmadai first, then the Sovereignty, then the erinyes.”
“Of course,” Lorcan said, “and afterward we bring down the demon princes. You cannot kill any of those!”
“We don’t need to kill them,” she said. “We just need to make them back down. By playing them off each other.”
“My enemies’ enemies are allies not-yet-confirmed,” Mehen quoted.
“Exactly,” Farideh said, turning to Lorcan. “Your mother will deal with Rohini handily enough, yes? So we lead the erinyes to Rohini and let them take care of things. You don’t get in the way when your enemies are willing to kill each other.” She looked to Mehen. “You’d better go. He’ll be between the shop we stopped at the first day and the House of Knowledge. He’ll want as many of the Ashmadai near before …” She swallowed. “Before he makes his point.”
Mehen seized her in a fierce embrace. She went stiff in his arms, as if she didn’t know what was happening. She reached an arm around Mehen and relaxed a little.
“For the love of all the planes, be careful,” he said. “We have too much to say to leave it here.” He squeezed her once and stepped back. He glowered at Lorcan. “And you …” He’d still have liked to punch the cambion right across the jaw, but not now. Not while Farideh needed him. “Prove your damn worth.” He spat.
“To you? I think I have,” the cambion said. “Twice now in fact.”
“Stop it,” Farideh snapped. “Mehen, go. Lorcan and Brin, we have to find where the erinyes’ portal opened.” They all started toward the end of the alley.
“How will you get rid of Invadiah once she’s finished?” he heard Lorcan ask. “And who will kill the Ashmadai? Not the erinyes—you can’t start a battle in the Hells.”
Farideh hesitated. “We don’t kill the Ashmadai,” she said. “We make them think they aren’t needed so they go away.”
Mehen eyed the empty street and turned toward the south.
“Are you going to burn down the House of Knowledge yourself?” he heard Lorcan ask.
Mehen almost wished he’d been too far to hear Farideh’s answer. “Not precisely,” she said. “I need you to set fire to me.”
FARIDEH HAD NO GLASS TO TELL THE TIME, BUT SURELY BY NOW THE amulet’s power over Lorcan had faded, and she watched him with a fair amount of trepidation and more than a little respect. He meant what he’d promised, it seemed.
“The erinyes are heading this way out of the ruined district,” Brin reported back. He had run ahead and scaled the tallest building he could find. “They’re staying on the widest road, a straight shot for here. Torm knows what they’ll do when they reach the Wall. There’re
at least ten of them.”
“Thirteen,” Lorcan said when he returned. “If there are only erinyes, then there will be thirteen. The praxidikai—a full ‘justice’ of erinyes for Rohini, because she broke her oath to an archdevil.” He shook his head again, but to his credit did not insist they should flee.
“The Ashmadai seem to have split themselves,” he reported, “but you were right. The larger group is headed to this intersection.” They stood at the plaza of the fountain, the spot where the Chasm wall dipped farthest into the city, and where the widest northern road met the main road.
“Tell me,” Lorcan said, “that you have given up this fool idea of setting yourself on fire.”
“A person on fire is going to catch their attention,” she said, tying the rags of her torn robes to the sleeves of her armor. “And if she is not screaming and trying to put out the flame, then they are really going to notice.”
“You are a tiefling,” Lorcan said, though he pinned the pair of charms that would keep her from catching fire too easily to her shoulders. “Not a shitting phoenix—the flames will burn you through eventually.”
“Which is why we must time everything right.”
Before long Farideh stood atop a crop of rock, Brin at the base, shrouded by Lorcan’s invisibility charm, and Lorcan behind her, muttering steadily about the futility of the plan and how he would take off with her the second the Ashmadai came too close.
“If you do,” she said, “I will kick you in the knees until you drop me. Stop complaining.” But for all her surety, the shadows crept out of her skin and swaddled them all.
Down the opposite road, the Ashmadai marched, their faces covered and hooded but the insignia of their alliance clear in the light of the flickering torches they carried. Those who did not hold torches carried bundles of kindling and glass bottles stuffed with rags and sloshing with accelerants. They made a poor pretense of quiet, too riled, it seemed, by the promise of impending havoc.
Behind her, beyond the Wall, she heard the terrible march of cloven feet.
“Go,” Farideh whispered, and she drew a deep breath to pull the shadows back into herself.
“Halt!” Brin cried, and his voice echoed and rebounded, loud enough to make the Ashmadai stop and not a few flinch back. Behind her, Lorcan whispered the spell that sent a gust of fire washing over her, igniting the shredded robes. He took a step back, less protected than he’d been before and spread his wings to good effect. Several of the more timid Ashmadai turned and fled.
But others were only emboldened. “Who are you to tell the servants of the Raging Fiend to halt?” one called, stepping forward.
Farideh did not answer at first, counting out the seconds in her head. Then a terrible clatter came from the Wall. She lifted her head slowly, dramatically, and cast her own curtain of flames at the surrounding cultists.
“I am the champion of Malbolge,” she said. She heard Brin draw his sword before scurrying into the nearest alleyway. “My lady knows your plans and orders you to cease … before you do anything foolish.” Again the sound of something heavy bashing into the aged wall, the clamor of an army, the crash of weapons.
The man who had stepped forward glanced back at his fellows as if he could not believe what he’d heard. “I think perhaps you are mistaken, girl. I think perhaps you are the warlock we’ve been warned of.”
The flames licked at her hair and cheeks now, but Farideh did not dare flinch. The shadows curled out from her to compensate, and she hoped dearly that it made a good effect. The stones around the fountain loosened and rattled to the ground.
“You speak of my sister-at-arms … a traitor to the … archduchess.” She stumbled as the fire grew hot enough to be felt through the charms, and briefly worried that was the wrong title. “We seek the same enemy,” she finished. She risked a glance back at the Wall. There were shadowy shapes clambering over the edges.
“Then let us have her and we will be done with this nonsense!”
“This is not a matter for the Ashmadai,” she said. “This is for Malbolge to address. If you deny my mistress her vengeance against the one who has broken her oath and given over her secrets to the monsters of the Chasm”—the fire started to smolder along the leather of her armor—“then you shall be the next to taste her wrath. Favored you might be among men, but you risk the wrath of Glasya.”
“Then she risks the wrath of Asmodeus!” the leader shouted, but his comrades were definitely backing away from Farideh, setting down their kindling, as if getting ready to fight or run. The shouts of erinyes accompanied the clatter of hooks on stone, the scramble of hooves against brick.
“What the ruler of Malbolge risks is not a mortal’s concern,” Farideh shouted quickly. “Consider then the rage of Asmodeus when he discovers your disobedience, that you have made yourselves an obstacle in Glasya’s retribution.
“Behold,” she shouted. “Her army approaches.”
Lorcan seized her then and pulled her off her perch, into the shadows of the alleyway. Either the Ashmadai had been convinced, or they would not be convinced, but she did not want the pradixikai’s attentions.
The erinyes in their black and shining armor crashed into the fountain square, one after another, smashing the delicate fountain to pieces. They towered several heads over the gawping Ashmadai. Where two had seemed a storm, thirteen—their leader larger and fiercer with that burning blade—made Farideh think of the mountain erupting, of the unstoppable flow of lava and ash that must have once enveloped Neverwinter.
The leader—Invadiah, surely—strode past, with eyes only for the temple ahead, and Farideh shuddered to think what having such a nightmare for a mother would be like. Others of the pradixikai broke their discipline to notice the gaping Ashmadai. One muscular erinyes with a shock of crimson hair swept her blade through the leader of the Ashmadai, cutting him neatly in twain. She cackled.
Farideh clapped a hand to her mouth to stem the gorge she felt rising at the man still blinking and clutching his hands at his spilling guts. The erinyes prodded at his still moving mouth with the tip of her sword. Lorcan mutely turned Farideh’s head aside, as the sounds of further slaughter rang through the streets.
“I told you Aornos and Nemea weren’t the worst,” he said quietly. “If they have half a mind among them—ah, there.”
The Ashmadai were fleeing their path of vengeance and the blades of the terrible erinyes, leaving behind the bleeding bodies of their fellows to lie in the damp streets and chased by the crowed insults of the mad erinyes. She turned at last and fit herself back into formation, blood still dripping down her sword.
Brin let the invisibility fall away. “One down,” he said, with an attempt at cheer.
Havilar made her body rigid as a board, so that only her heels dragged along the cobbles, and tried to jerk herself free by catching on the protruding stones. The shopkeeper only stopped and clouted her so hard she saw stars, before resuming his trek again, her glaive now his walking stick.
She had stayed firm and calm as Mehen would have exhorted her to. Then she had broken down in a panic that had soaked her gag with her own tears. Now she was calm again, and determined, at the very least, to give the bastard enough trouble that he remembered her long after he’d done the sacrificing.
That stirred up the panic again, and she made herself breathe more slowly.
At times, she knew they’d called her “the brave one,” but it wasn’t always the case. There was plenty Havilar didn’t fear compared to her sister—that was true without a doubt—but when things were very bad—like when Farideh had been lost in the woods or when Havilar had woken after she’d killed all those Ashmadai—Farideh could be as calm as a general out of one of Mehen’s stories. And Havilar …
Havilar wanted Farideh to save her.
“We are nearly there,” her captor said, with a mad sort of cheer. “They will see I was right. Oh, ho! They will see I was more than right—I am favored.”
You must think like Fa
rideh would, she told herself. I could fight him if I were free. I could cut myself free if I had a knife. He has my blade though, and I’m too bound up to use it. And though he had dragged her over what felt like miles of cobblestones and refuse, the ropes were only fraying the smallest bit.
If he came close enough, she might kick him with both legs together. But she could not fathom how to make the shopkeeper stand where she might get a good shot at his vitals. Surely, he wasn’t that stupid.
He hauled her into a proper road and Havilar cast her gaze around for some sign that Farideh had figured out how to save her. Or barring that, a knife seller who would like to test his wares on her bindings. But if there were anyone in the road, they were steadfastly ignoring the madman dragging her unyielding form toward the House of Knowledge. Henish, she thought bitterly.
The flash of movement along the buildings on the far side of the road caught her attention. Someone was tracking them, moving through the shadows, and despite herself, Havilar felt her panic rising.
“They will be along here,” the shopkeeper said, half to himself. “They will have to listen … we will find them soon enough, and then—”
A great shape barreled out of the night and into the shopkeeper. A spidery arc of lightning cast over the distance between it and the cultist, and in the brief light, Havilar picked out the shape of Mehen, his falchion at the ready.
The shopkeeper swung the glaive clumsily at Mehen, refusing to let go of Havilar’s bindings. Mehen stepped out of its path and swung the heavy falchion down into the shopkeeper’s arm. Blood spattered against her scalp, and she crashed to the ground as the shopkeeper screamed and lost his grip.
Havilar rolled herself onto her stomach and got her knees under her so she could pull herself upright. Mehen’s sword drove back the bloodied cultist, who stubbornly clung to her glaive as his other arm gushed bright red blood through a wound that peeled muscle back to expose the bright white of bone beneath.
He managed to block Mehen’s next two strikes with the glaive, then suddenly cast the glaive aside to reach into his pocket.
Brimstone Angels Page 37
